"Extracting the Precious From the Worthless"

[Ed. Note: The following article is part of an in-depth review by Pastor Larry DeBruyn of a book titled The Physics of Heaven: Exploring God’s Mysteries of Sound, Light, Energy, Vibrations and Quantum Physics which is articulating an emerging eschatology that bridges the New Age Religion (NAR) with the New Apostolic Reformation (also NAR). The book's second chapter provides great insight into the process by which this book's many authors are jointly concocting a new theology.*]

By Pastor Larry DeBruyn

Review of Chapter 2 (authored by Ellyn Davis): "Extracting the Precious From the Worthless"[1]

“Therefore, thus says the Lord, / ‘If you return, then I will restore
you— / Before Me you will stand; /And if you extract the precious from
the worthless, / You will become My spokesman. / They for their part may
turn to you,But as for you, you must not turn to them’.” Emphasis
added, Jeremiah 15:19[2]

IntroductionSeeking
In their searching for spiritual truth, Ellyn Davis proposes that Christians engage New Age Religion (NAR) to seek for and take back truths which originally belonged to citizens of the Kingdom of God. (TPOH, 15) In that counterfeits prove the existence of the genuine, Davis, a former hippie from the 60s, has decided to commence a search for truth amidst a spirituality of lies. By her admission, she views much in New Age Religion that is “worthless,” but also thinks that its spirituality possesses truths which are “precious.” This assumption derives from her observing and being intrigued by “healings and mystical experiences and revelations” in New Age Religion which rival anything she “had seen or experienced” in the charismatic church; hence the chapter’s title—Extracting the Precious From the Worthless.(TPOH, 14)

Science and Soul
Additionally, Davis’ scientific training and background has aroused her curiosity to discover how the natural and spiritual worlds connect and interact. She had sensed that a relationship existed between soul and science, but had never considered adapting her spirituality to it. So her goal is to not only to seek out what is “precious” in NewAge Religion and incorporate it into her belief system, but also to integrate, as New Agers are doing, the Quantum Mysticism believed to be essential in our understanding of the universe’s spirituality. To lend scriptural support to this pursuit, Davis uses, or misuses (you decide), a prophecy taken from Jeremiah which she subtly combines with a personal revelation God gave her. We turn now to observe her permuted prophecy.

Text as Pretext
Heading this chapter is an italicized paragraph introduced with the statement, In Jeremiah 15:19, God says.... So what is it that God says? The content of what God says is now quoted exactly as it appears in the chapter heading.

In Jeremiah 15: 19, God says,“If you extract the precious from the worthless, you will become My spokesman.” We may have to delve into areas we previously considered off-limits to extract the “precious” from the “worthless” and recover lost truths that belong to the people of God.(TPOH, 11)

Readers should note the run-on italics marking the entire paragraph to be God’s utterance—In Jeremiah 15:19, God says.... In that both sentences compose an italicized whole, one is left with the impression that what God said to the author (i.e., We may have to...) expressed in the second sentence is on a par with what Yahweh told Jeremiah in the first (i.e., “If you extract...”). The twice recurrent pronoun “we” in the second prophecy indicates God told Davis that together they will “delve into areas we previously considered off-limits” to find common spiritual ground between charismatic Christianity, New Age Religion and Quantum Mysticism. In short, God tells Davis that together they will seek out this emerging alternative spirituality.

Regarding this introduction, two points can be noted. First, God tells Davis that they (i.e., we) are going to search out spiritualities they had previously considered “off-limits” (See Deuteronomy 18:9-15.).(TPOH, 11) So we ask: Has God changed His mind? Does God now approve of Christians seeking out occult spiritualities that once-upon-a-time He forbade, as long as He seeks it with her? Davis understands that many in the church (including me) write off pursuit of the occult to be flirting with demons. But no matter, she instigates that “courageous Christians” will go after “the precious” in New Age Religion any way.(TPOH, 16) Second, Davis’ partial quotation from Jeremiah 15:19 (If you extract the precious from the worthless, you will become My spokesman.) should be noted. It’s is not from the New King James Version as the copyright section of the book claims all Bible quotations to be from (unless otherwise noted), but from the New American Standard Bible.[3]

The Contradiction
Ellyn Davis’ combining of revelations—both Jeremiah’s from the 6th century BC and hers from the 21st century AD—illustrates the functional authority of the prophetic gift within the charismatic New Apostolic Reformation. As Yahweh spoke to Jeremiah in his day, God speaks to and through new prophets today, the newer revelations being equal to the older. But as will be demonstrated, in this instance the contemporary revelation supposedly given by God to prophetess Davis actually distorts what He originally told the prophet Jeremiah. So the contradictory “new revelation” raises the following conundrum:

If new revelations repeat what’s in the Bible, they are unnecessary. If added revelations contradict the Word of God, they are heresy. And if they supplement God’s Word, then the new revelations imply Scripture’s insufficiency, and about this Proverbs warns: “Add thou not unto his [God’s] words, lest he [God] reprove thee, and thou be found a liar” (Proverbs 30:6, KJV).

So the reader must decide: If Davis’ revelation is true then the divine revelation to Jeremiah is false. Or if the divine revelation to Jeremiah is true, then the self-authorized prophecy of Davis is false. Because both revelations stand in dialectic with each other, both cannot be true at the same time, or at any other time.

Davis’ premise is that the “worthless” must be discerned and separated from the “precious,” so this study and writing shall attempt to discern whether the contents of chapter 2 in The Physics of Heaven are precious or worthless. The contradiction between what God said to Jeremiah and what He supposedly told Ellyn Davis needs to be exposed. But first it might be helpful for us to understand the author’s background.

Her Spiritual JourneyHippie from the Sixties
Though growing up in “a staunch Baptist home” in the deep south (Many advocates of change reject conservative upbringings as “out-of-touch.”), Ms. Davis, in light of the cultural shift occurring during the 1960s (the Viet Nam War and its protests, the exploration of Space and landing on the Moon, the Civil Rights movement, the emerging Feminist Movement, and the Hippie counter culture with its emerging “turn on, tune out, and drop out” philosophy of life), found her Christian faith to be irrelevant.(TPOH, 11, 12) In her words, “The times ‘they were a-changing’ and we flower children wanted to do our part to accelerate the coming of this golden age.”(TPOH, 12) But the utopian vision faded for reason of the anarchy and licentiousness inherent in the counter-culture movement of the 60s (Remember Woodstock?), and “burned out” Hippies shifted their attention from society to spirituality. Numbers of the era’s radicals, it ought to be noted, still sought to change society, but did so by entrenching themselves in America’s established institutions (educational and governmental) where they became agents and agitates for deconstructing the traditional way of American life.

Her “Encounter”
So Davis joined the establishment. She attended graduate school, was awarded an M.S. in biochemistry, worked toward a Ph.D. in virology, got married and ran several successful businesses. But then she encountered the Holy Spirit, got fired up for God, became “Jesus freak” and pursued ministry. Meanwhile, other ex-hippies embraced “a multi-faceted belief system [New Age Religion] dedicated to achieving heightened spiritual consciousness... [by] developing powers of the mind, aligning with positive ‘energies,’ and removing physical, mental, and emotional blockages to enlightenment.”(TPOH, 13) In their embrace of New Age Religion, these children of the 60s experimented “with Eastern and Native American religious practices, metaphysical philosophies, alternative healing methods, and altered states of consciousness.”(TPOH, 13) So during the aftermath of the revolutionary 60s, the separate and disparate Christian charismatic and New Age religious movements developed side-by-side, the one being indifferent to, if not intolerant of, the other.

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Supernaturalism at Sedona
So fast forward to the year 2006, when Ellyn Davis, ex-hippie turned “Jesus freak,” moved to Sedona, Arizona, a geographical center for practicing New Age Religion.... There she became intrigued at seeing the same phenomena of her charismatic faith exhibited among New Age religious devotees—“healings and mystical experiences and revelations to rival anything I had seen or experienced in the church.”(TPOH, 14) Her experience of observing similar phenomena happening in NAR (New Age Religion) as in her NAR (New Apostolic Reformation) caused Ms. Davis to ponder the following question: Do Christianity and New Age spirituality hold beliefs in common?[4] Is there anything “precious” which can be extracted from New Age Religion and incorporated into the Christian faith? Or, is Kipling’s assessment true, “Oh, East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet...”?[5]

Shoveling Manure
But with “experience as her guide,” Davis assumes and proposes, as do other of the books endorsers and authors, that Christianity and New Age Religion share common ground in their belief in supernaturalism and the science of quantum physics where physicists observe and calculate how energy and matter interact at the sub and sub-sub atomic levels of reality. To arrive at their theory, she and other of the book’s contributors assume there’s a “mystical correlation” between science and spirituality, the connection of which becomes clarified from two sources. First, by exploring the beliefs of New Age Religion and second, by receiving divine “guidance” from new revelations (Remember God revealed to Davis, “We may have to delve into areas previously considered off-limits.”). So after stating she “could not find a single Christian leader who shared a similar interest in finding out if there were truths hidden in the New Age” (New apostle-prophets consider themselves to be on the cutting edge of spirituality as they explore the esoteric.), Davis writes:

Now we are beginning to hear more and more revelation that is in line with what New Agers have been saying all along and we are hearing more and more teaching about Christians “taking back truths” from the New Age that really belong to citizens of the Kingdom of God.(Emphasis added, TPOH, 15)

Note:more and more revelation.... As indicated by the chapter’s title and her contriving of Jeremiah’s words to fit her purpose, she calls this mining of New Age Religion to find hidden truths, “Extracting the ‘precious’ from the ‘worthless’.”(TPOH, 13, 15) In describing the extraction process, she employs a colorful metaphor, taken from her father’s estimation of her gritty character, which compares her search to shoveling manure (all the “worthless”) to find the pony of truth (the “precious”) in New Age Religion. In the search, new revelations are meant to guide the search and verify the spiritual truths discovered during extraction process. To repeat, “Now” she says, “we are beginning to hear more and more revelation that is in line with what New Agers have been saying all along.”(TPOH, 15) Thus, supernatural visions, voices and visitations guide seekers through this amazing maze of spirituality and science, a conglomeration of the charismatic, scientific, mystical, and biblical.

But for any Bible believing Christian, an important question becomes, does the Lord’s word to Jeremiah endorse shoveling the manure of New Age Religion to look for “the precious” in it? Note: In contrast to Davis’ contention, it should be observed that Jeremiah condemned false prophets who spoke visions from their own imaginations, seers who accommodated combining Israel’s faith in Jehovah with occult spirituality (Read Jeremiah 23:9-32.). So it must be asked, did the Lord tell Jeremiah something different from, even opposite to, what The Physics of Heaven proposes? To answer that question, we turn to Jeremiah to look at what the Lord really told His prophet (Jeremiah 15:15-21; *19).

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A Weary ProphetMixing His Message
Prophetic ministry, especially the forth-telling or rebuking obligation of it, grew to weigh heavy on Jeremiah’s heart. He had grown weary of the loneliness of his prophetic calling and his unpopularity among and persecution by the people (Jeremiah 15:15, 17, 20-21). So he did what any preacher might do when facing similar circumstances. To be liked (one of life’s essential needs), he chose a path of lesser resistance and became a people-pleaser. He compromised the word God gave him by mixing in messages the people liked to hear. The prophet altered his preaching content from one of declaring what God directly told him to say (i.e., the precious) to one in which he pandered to and schmoozed with his audience (i.e., the worthless). In other words, he chose style over substance. He allowed the audience, not the Lord, to drive the message. In today’s jargon, he preached “seeker sensitive” and “user friendly.”

Un-mixing His Message
But the Lord did not approve of Jeremiah’s compromise. He had appointed the prophet to be His messenger no matter how unpopular the message might be. As Derek Kidner (1913-2008) commented: “As God’s spokesman, he [the prophet] must allow himself no alloy [mixing] of faithless thoughts and words [with faithful thoughts and words]....”[6] And again, “Popular or unpopular (which had been a burning issue for this thin-skinned man), a prophet must be—and must still be—as uncompromising as the truth itself.”[7] So the Lord’s message to Jeremiah was that he needed to separate “the worthless words” he used to “tickle the ears” of his audience from “the precious words” the Lord gave him to preach (2 Timothy 4:3-4). To restore the ministry of Jeremiah, to give him a second chance to get his prophetic ministry right, the Lord told His prophet, “And if you extract the precious from the worthless, You will become My spokesman” (Jeremiah 15:19).[8]

If the prophet did not separate the word of the Lord from words the people wanted to hear, he would no longer be qualified to be the Lord’s prophet. So with His statement to Jeremiah (Jeremiah 15:19), the Lord did not intend, borrowing Kidner’s words, to release Jeremiah from his prophetic calling, but rather to renew the prophet’s commitment to preach His word only. God was telling Jeremiah to separate the prophetic utterances He inspired (i.e., the precious) from the words the prophet spoke to please people (i.e., the worthless), and declare only what He ordered him to. Remarkably, as the rest of Jeremiah’s prophecy indicates, the prophet listened to God, repented of his mixed message, prophesied only what God ordered him to, and ended his ministry with the dignity of knowing he had faithfully and uncompromisingly served the Lord. Throughout it all, the Lord promised to protect the prophet (Jeremiah 15:20-21).

Compromise Contaminates
It is obvious that when studied in biblical and historical context, God’s injunction to the Jeremiah has nothing whatsoever to do with shoveling the manure of New Age Religion to look a pony of truth. In fact, God instructed His prophet to separate his message from, not integrate his message with, all man-originated spirituality—New Age Religious, Quantum Mystical, or otherwise. To be heard with clarity, God’s Word must stand alone, and to that end, His “precious” Word must be separated from human contrivances of it. Because the spiritual system is not revealed by God, New Age Religion neither needs nor desires the God of the Bible, and this explains why the Lord forbids believers to have any interaction with occult religion. (Again, see Deuteronomy 18:9-15.) Contact with spiritual entities of the occult, whether intentional or inadvertent, infects the whole of spirituality.

This explains why in another instance, when Israel was about to exit from the Babylonian Captivity about ten centuries after Moses wrote Deuteronomy, the Lord warned the nation’s spiritual leadership of the contaminating effects of Babylonian spirituality (Which like the religion of the Canaanites, was but another ancient version of New Age Religion—see Daniel 2:2.). The Lord ordered the spiritual leaders of the Jews:

“Depart ye, depart ye, go ye out from thence [from Babylon], touch no unclean thing; go ye out of the midst of her; be ye clean, that bear the vessels of the LORD.”[9] Emphasis added, Isaiah 52:11, KJV

This statement by the Lord to Israel, like His statement to Jeremiah, does not encourage dabbling in New Age Religion to find “the precious” within it, but rather for His people to separate altogether from any such spirituality. To this point, it must be noted that God also told Abraham to separate from the spirituality of Babylon (Genesis 12:1 ff.). So Raymond Ortlund asks and then advises:

Which city will be our home, our identity—Babylon or Zion? The people of God cannot remain as they are. Israel had to leave Egypt. The exiles had to flee Babylon. We too must decide, and get moving. God is telling us to run from every system of false self-salvation, and fast. He expects us to make a clean break, because he has something better for us.[10]

This chapter’s entire ecumenical premise (Examining “New Age thought and practice to extract anything “precious” from it.) is unbiblical and therefore, wrong. As James states, “Does a fountain send out from the same opening both fresh and bitter water?” (James 3:11). Contrary to what The Physics of Heaven proposes, God’s word plainly teaches that the Christian faith must be separated from and not integrated with alternative spiritualities (See 2 Corinthians 6:14-18; Romans 16:17; Galatians 1:8; 2 Timothy 3:5; 2 John 10.).

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The Future of Spirituality
Yet the author informs readers that integrating the Quantum Mysticism of New Age Religion and Christianity is where spirituality is currently trending. Therefore, to avoid irrelevancy, the church had better get with this new move of the Holy Spirit and follow after the spiritual trends set by Marianne Williamson (A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles, 1992), Eckhart Tolle (The Power of Now, 1997; A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose, 2005) Rhonda Byrne (The Secret, 2006), and their publicist Oprah Winfrey. Davis notes that “over three and a half million New Agers worldwide [have embraced] some sort of philosophical/spiritual spin on the quantum physics theories of the early to mid-twentieth century.”(TPOH, 16) This cultural trend causes the author to state, “I believe that a great work of God is in process as He restores knowledge and insights that have been lost to Christians but are now hidden in the teachings and practices of Quantum Mysticism.”(TPOH, 17)

Skating to the Future
Borrowing an analogy from former hockey great Wayne Gretzky (who explains the genius of his game by having skated to and positioned himself to where he anticipated the puck was going), Ellyn Davis advises the church not remain where the puck is or has been (the tired old revelations, scientific laws of Newton and fossilized teachings of the past), but skate to where lively new revelations, quantum physics and mystical experiences lead.(TPOH, 17-18) The culture’s a-changing and Christians need to adapt (as did the author when she encountered the radical 60s counter-culture that challenged the relevancy of her “staunch Baptist” upbringing) or risk obsolescence and irrelevance. The spiritual puck’s moving, and Christians had better get to where it’s going. To keep up with the times, the church had better anticipate where New Age Religion and Quantum Mysticism are taking the Christian faith. But the author’s application of the hockey illustration is flawed.

Church Checked!
The problem is this: That’s not how “a team” plays “the game.” My son, who for years played the sport at a high competitive level, confirmed that his coaches always demanded players discipline themselves to play their positions, whether center (like Gretzky), forward, defense or goalie, and maintain proper spacing while either on defense or offense. If caught out of position, one quick pass by the other team can lead to a goal, which in hockey is often the margin of defeat or victory. So if every player skated to where they thought the puck was going to be, guess what? They’d all be out of position, “check” each other out, and fall to the ice in a pile thereby giving the other team a golden opportunity to score an easy goal!

So if the church skates to where it perceives religion trending, the church will loose because unlike spiritualities built upon and around the mystical and paranormal, where the Christian faith is going depends upon where it’s been. Christianity is a historical faith. By the nature, the mystical is not historical because religious experiences of it depend neither upon historical facts or events. They’re spontaneous. So God’s Word tells believers to pay attention to the past so that their faith doesn’t get sabotaged in the future. That’s why Paul and Jude told early Christians not to chase after “different gospels,” but to keep “the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints” (Galatians 1:6-9; Jude 3). Nevertheless, Davis recommends deserting the old-faith-paradigm to chase after an emerging a new one by extraction extracting “the precious” of New Age Religion and Quantum Mysticism and combining the extractions with Charismatic Christianity.

“Dove Dung”
To reinforce her Gretzky illustration, Davis cites a statement made by Canadian Pentecostal Ern Baxter (1914-1993), who was associated with American Pentecostal and “latter rain prophet” William Branham (1909-1965), and who had “lived through multiple moves of God.” In a quotation that coordinates with Davis’ previously used shoveling-manure metaphor, she quotes Baxter as having said: “When the Holy Spirit moves on, all that’s left is dung.”(TPOH, 18) So if the church doesn’t want to be left with “dove dung,” it had better shovel through the manure of New Age Religion and Quantum Mysticism looking for “precious ponies” of spiritual truth.

Quantum MysticismThe Gravity “god”
It’s difficult for human beings to feel comfortable in non-personal and mechanical universe, regardless how much psychotherapy a person might undergo (See Psalm 8:3-4.). Yet the science of quantum physics observes “the system” only working as a mechanism. Though studying quantum physics (observing nature’s functioning at the micro-microscopic perspective) can compliment belief in the creator God, it does not, as with NAR, necessarily lead to belief in God. For example, renowned quantum physicist Stephen Hawking (1942- ) recently announced he was an atheist. He opines that physics offers a “more convincing explanation” for the universe’s origin because “miracles of religion ‘aren’t compatible’ with scientific fact.”[11] He also stated believing in heaven or an afterlife is “a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.”[12]

By way of contrast, Hawking “claims that science offers a ‘more convincing’ cosmogony” because after investigation into life’s quantum realities is exhausted, gravity remains (“the secret” of why the universe exists and holds together). Therefore scientists with an anti-supernatural bent of mind (like Hawking) postulate that gravity (i.e., the Force) is the genius or god that explains both the universe’s origination (from whence it derives) and continuation (how it drives).[13] If for some reason this gravity-god, whether it’s called the Higgs particle or zero-point energy field, collapses, life as humans consciously know and participate in it will be over. In other words, the universe is ticking on a quantum clock!

Saved by “the mystical”
So to avoid feelings of angst and aloneness amidst an mechanical and impersonal universe, New Age Religion attempts to interface with science by injecting the mystical into the mechanical, the result being known as Quantum Mysticism. Instant-presto-change-o.... the mechanical becomes meaningful as science becomes spiritual and physics becomes philosophy. As quantum physics explains the universe’s working, Quantum Mysticism provides meaning, even if that meaning is illusory. But the belief, or unbelief, of Hawking indicates that quantum knowledge does not lead seekers to the super-supernatural worldview espoused by the authors of The Physics of Heaven. Though nature’s very existence may lead observers to believe in a God who created it—Why not nothing?—fact of the matter is, quantum physics can end, as it does with Hawking, in believing in gravity, not God. (See “No God!” Psalms 10:4; 14:1a; 53:1a; compare Romans 1:18-23; Psalm 8:4-8; 19:1-6.) Neither does science lead observers to faith in the Christian God.

Though quantum physics (Who wound the universe up?) and intelligent design (Who finely tuned the universe?) can theistically argue for God’s existence generally, these evidences do not prove the Christian God especially. To that end, special revelation is needed, and this was exactly what the Protestant Reformers understood the case to be. Natural theology does not lead to faith in the God of the Bible. Scripture alone, God’s revelation of Himself, states the existence of this God. (Go ahead and accuse the argument as being circular, if you want.) So of the Protestant Reformers it is said that,

[They] objected to the impact of philosophy upon theology and insisted upon a return to Scripture. They assumed that all people have some implicit knowledge of God’s existence (Calvin’s “sense of divinity”), but they declared it useless apart from the revelation of God’s will and grace in Jesus Christ.[14]

Studying how the universe behaves—calculating vibrations, observing brainwaves or theorizing about the existence of the Higgs boson or zero-point energy field—does not invariably point seekers to Jesus Christ, the One whom Scripture teaches holds the universe together (“He is before all things, and by him all things consist,” Emphasis added, Colossians 1:17, KJV). In fact, the Apostle Paul warned Christians that physics/philosophy can so captivate human minds that they will be led away from Christ, not to Him. Among other potential captors, the Apostle warned the Colossians, “See to it that no one takes you captive... according to the elementary principles of the world (Greek, ta stoicheia tou kosmou), rather than according to Christ” (Colossians 2:8). [15] Therefore, to understand the danger posed by synthesizing Christianity with New Age Religion and the Quantum Mysticism inserted into it, Bible believers need to understand the modern relevance of this ancient descriptive phrase, “the elementary principles of the world” (Greek, ta stoicheia tou kosmou).

The Rudiments of the World
As it relates to the world or cosmos, the word “rudiments” (KJV, Greek, stoicheion) is variously translated “elemental powers” (NAB), “elementary principles” (NASB), “basic principles” (NIV, NKJV), “evil powers” (NLT), and “elemental spirits” (ESV, NRSV). Translations indicate that the meaning of the Greek word diverges between “principles” and “powers,” between the “physical elements” constituting the cosmos or universe and “spiritual powers” inhabiting it. Interestingly and not unlike the Quantum Mystics of modernity, the ancient mind did not separate the spiritual principalities and powers that inhabit the universe from the material particles which comprise it (i.e., the stoichieon). As one lexical authority notes, “heavenly bodies were also regarded as personal beings and given divine honors.”[16] Ancients believed that Earth, Water, Air and Fire, and perhaps a fifth element (the pure essence of the universe where ancient science believed the gods [“principalities and powers”?] lived and breathed), the Aether comprised the universe.[17] Ancient pagans believed that divinities (i.e., powers) permeated the cosmic reality. Therefore, to prevent the powers from going rogue, pagans would observe compensatory rituals and offer appeasing sacrifices and offerings to placate them hoping that the powers might be inclined to calm nature down when life was threatened.[18]

The New Testament indicates that the ancient mind wedded particles and powers. In 2 Peter 3:10, the sense of “particles”—that is, the “elements” which “shall melt with fervent heat”—is evident, while in Galatians 4:3 and 9, the other sense—that is, “world forces” which once “held in bondage” the believers in Galatia—is evident. Not unlike modern quantum spiritualists who seek to divinize nature, the ancient mind believed “the rudiments of the world” (Greek, ta stoicheia tou kosmou) designated both the physical “elements” that comprise the universe and the “spirituality” permeating it (i.e., polytheism, pantheism, or panentheism).[19] In their attempt to make sense of the universe, ancient people assigned consciousness to the energy (i.e., the Force) which they believed formed the cosmos’ self-perpetuating and self-regenerating polarity (i.e., the yin and the yang). Of ancient Hermetic wisdom, Magee notes that philosophy viewed “everything in the cosmos [to be]... internally related, bound up with everything else.”[20] He then explains:

Even though the cosmos may be hierarchically arranged, there are forces that cut across and unify at all levels. Divine powers understood variously as “energy” or “light” pervade the whole.[21]

Because of the way the human heart is bent (the Bible designates it as our “sin nature”), spiritual seduction can easily accompany the study of any science, especially the quantum disorder where observed chaos and chance are taken indicate there’s no cosmos (order) or control, the implication being as Hawking believes, there’s no God. Personally, I see enough order in the universe—we live with it every day—to indicate there’s a divine Creator, while at the same time I see enough disorder—we too live with it every day—to indicate the curse (Genesis 3:17-19). Whether at the macro or micro levels of existence, creation is cursed, albeit temporarily (Romans 8:18-23; 2 Peter 3:13; Revelation 21:1.).

Conclusion
Should we be concerned and intimidated by the hybrid spirituality known as New Age Religion/Quantum Mysticism in post-Christian America? Well, yes and no. Yes because Paul warned that being captivated by such a physics/philosophy (i.e., “the rudiments of the world”) can lead Christians away from Christ, and yes because all Christians should know that there can be no fellowship between Christ and Belial or agreement of the temple of God—whose habitation we are “in Christ”—with idols (See Colossians 2:8; 2 Corinthians 6:15-16.). But no, because in His fullness, God “spoiled” whatever opposing spiritual forces are “out there” through Jesus Christ as He “disarmed the rulers and authorities [and] made a public display of them, having triumphed over them” (Colossians 2:15). Though opposing entities will continue to manipulate “the world’s spirituality” in their favor, their influence will end when “the only manifested Son of God” delivers them a death blow.

Believers will participate in this coming triumph in the final conflict (Colossians 3:4). But until then, Satan will continue to employ “the rudiments of the world,” the elements and their powers, to lure people’s attention and faith away from the Lord Jesus Christ unto other personae, whether real or imagined (Ephesians 6:10-17). Stemming from human imaginings, digitally created UFOs, invading aliens, and grotesque and menacing giants heighten people’s fascination with paranormal substitutes for Christ (which is the spirit of Antichrist, 1 John 4:1-3; 2:21-23). This digital neo-Gnosticism (call it science fiction) seeks to take captive human hearts by shifting the Spirit’s illumination away from the Lord Jesus Christ thereby fixating souls’ attentions upon the foreboding darkness of occult phenomena. Sadly, whether peddled via Xbox, other computerized gaming systems, or Hollywood movies, these addictive counterfeit realities have been and are being injected worldwide into the hearts and souls of millions, if not billions, of people, young and old. Though they include varieties of mythical characters with mystical powers, these digital deceptions ignore the God of the Bible, and this imagery is idolatry. Sadly and following after this the culture of cyberspace, Christian teachers are adapting their message to this neo-Gnostic and mythic worldview.

When isolated from special revelation, nature does bear a redemptive witness to the biblical God. Quantum observers can become so fixated upon the creation they forget there’s a Creator. Thus they turn the tables on a creation that is supposed to glorify God and assert their own glory (See Romans 1:20-23.). They create their own deities, whether they be named Ishtar, Isis, Horus, Yazad, Baal, Astarte, Allah, Shiva, or whatever. Christians should therefore be concerned about a proposal that encourages engaging New Age Religion and Quantum Mysticism to extract “the precious” from “the worthless” in order to discover a new “quantum faith.” Falling into this trap harbingers spiritual captivity for hearts who become so enthralled.

“Be
ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship
hath righteousness with unrighteousness?and what communion hath light
with darkness?And what concord hath Christ with Belial?or what part
hath he that believeth with an infidel?And what agreement hath the
temple of God with idols?for ye are the temple of the living God;as
God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them;and I will be
their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore come out from among
them,and be ye separate, saith the Lord,and touch not the unclean
thing;and I will receive you,And will be a Father unto you,and ye
shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.” Emphasis
added, The Apostle Paul, 2 Corinthians 14-18, KJV

Endnotes[1] Ellyn Davis, Chapter 2: “Extracting the Precious From the Worthless,” The Physics of Heaven: Exploring God’s Mysteries of Sound, Light, Energy, Vibrations and Quantum Physics, by Judy Franklin & Ellyn Davis (Crossville, TN: Double Portion Publishing, 2012): 11-19.[2] Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are taken from the New American Standard Bible (Anaheim, CA: Foundation Publications, 1995).[3] We cite the quotes so readers can note the differences: “If you take out the precious from the vile, You shall be as My mouth.” (Jeremiah 15:19, NKJV); “And if you extract the precious from the worthless, You will become My spokesman.” (Jeremiah 15:19, NASB).[4] One can only note the irony that the acronyms for the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) and New Age Religion (NAR) are the same, perhaps suggesting the two movements do share spiritualities. Obviously, Franklin and Davis, as other contributors to the book, think this to be the case.[5] Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936), “The Ballad of East and West.”[6] Derek Kidner, The Message of Jeremiah: The Bible Speaks Today, J.A. Motyer, Editor (Downers Grove, IL: Inter-Varsity Press, 1987): 69.[7] Ibid: 70.[8] A number of other translations of Jeremiah 15:19 bear this out. They are: “If thou take forth the precious from the vile, thou shalt be as my mouth” (King James Version); “If you take out the precious from the vile, You shall be as My mouth” (Jeremiah 15:19, New King James Version); “If you utter what is precious, and not what is worthless, you shall be as my mouth” (Jeremiah 15:19, English Standard Version); “If instead of talking nonsense you proclaim a worthwhile message, you will be my prophet again” (Today’s English Version); “And if you speak things that have worth, not useless words, then you may speak for me” (New Century Version); “If you speak words that are worthy, you will be my spokesman” (New Living Translation); and “If you utter what is precious, and not what is worthless, you shall serve as my mouth” (New Revised Standard Version).[9] Commanding that true believers continue to separate themselves from the spirituality of idolatry, the Apostle Paul quotes Isaiah’s prophecy in 2 Corinthians 6:17.[10] Emphasis added, Raymond C. Ortlund, Jr., Isaiah: God Saves Sinners (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2005): 348.[11] Dominique Mosbergen, “Stephen Hawking Says ‘There Is No God,’ Confirms He’s An Atheist,” The Huffington Post, September 25, 2014 (http://www.huffingtonpost.com /2014/09/25/stephen-hawking-atheist_n_5882860.html).[12] Ken Ammi, “Atheist Stephen Hawking claims to know that God does not exist,” Examiner.com, October 13, 2014 (http://www.examiner.com/article/atheist-stephen-hawking-claims-to-know-that-god-does-not-exist).[13] Ibid.[14] John Van Engen, “Natural Theology,” The Concise Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, Edited by Walter A. Elwell, Abridged by Peter Toon (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House Company, 1991): 331.[15] See Pastor Larry DeBruyn, “The Supreme Supremacy of the Lord Jesus Christ: Christ Before Cosmos,” Guarding His Flock Ministries, August 13, 2013 (http://guardinghisflock.com/2013/08/13/the-supreme-supremacy-of-the-lord-jesus-christ/#more-2442).[16] See William F. Arndt and F. Wilbur Gingrich, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1979): 769. Bright notes: “The ancient paganisms were all polytheistic, with dozens of gods arranged in complex pantheons. These gods were for the most part personifications of the forces of nature or other cosmic functions; they were in and of nature and, like nature, without any particular moral character. Their will could be manipulated in the ritual (which re-enacted the myth) so that they would bestow on the worshipper the desired tangible benefits.” See John Bright, The Kingdom of God: The Biblical Concept and Its Meaning for the Church (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, MCMLIII): 25.[17] “Aether (classical element),” Wikipedia: the Free Encyclopedia (https://en.wikipedia. org/wiki/ Aether _(classical_element).[18] An Excurses on Idolatry:Any religious belief system which fuses spirituality into materiality has, I think, a cause, an affect and a consequence. First, the contrast between nature’s longevity (the eternality of matter is assumed) and human brevity (in the evolutionary pattern of a self-creating universe, man is a “late-bloomer” and his time is short) causes pagans to deify the longer-lasting elements (i.e., “Mother Nature”). Second, because pagans believe the spiritual permeates the natural (i.e., earth, wind, fire and water), they attempt to visualize this “union” by making idols out of the elements they believe the spirits inhabit. (See Isaiah 44:12-17; Jeremiah 10:1-16.). Thus, particles are possessed of powers. And third, knowing that “Mother Nature,” beautiful seductress that she may be, possesses a mean streak and can suddenly turn nasty, how do pagans attempt to mollify her so she will not turn against them? Fearfully, they sacrifice and pray to the gods in an attempt to manipulate the elements and mollify the spirits to be kindly disposed toward them (See 1 Kings 18:20-29.). This is what develops when primitive people do not accept that the Creator created the universe (Jeremiah 10:10-16).[19] Though in the universe God is Omni-present (Jeremiah 23:24), He is not omni-permeant. Pantheistically or panentheistically, God’s Soul does not permeate matter because out of nothing He created it separate from Himself. As the eternally pre-existent and Holy One, God did not fuse His being into the matter He created (as asserted by process theology). In “the day of the Lord” when God will destroy the present created order (2 Peter 3:7, 10), and assuming that nature is infused of God, what’s God going to do, destroy Himself? If God is nature, then the present ecological crisis is hopeless. Also, that God permeates matter is the assumption of idolatry (See Isaiah 40:18-22.). In worshipping God, the distinction between the Creator and the creation/creature must ever be maintained (See Revelation 4:10-11; Romans 1:19-23.) If that distinction is violated, then as idolaters materialize their deities, so-called “worship” becomes idolatry (See Exodus 32:1-6.).[20] Glenn Alexander Magee, Hegel and the Hermetic Tradition (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001): 13.[21] Ibid.

About Me

Check your daily "HERESCOPE." Herescope is an online journal revealing heresies and false teachings affecting the church today. Copyright 2005-2018 held by the author or IRG, Inc. unless otherwise noted. Herescope is a term coined by Lynn Leslie literally meaning "scoping out a heresy." Herescope began as a regular magazine column in The Christian Conscience magazine published during 1995-1998 by IRG, Inc. The Discernment Research Group is an ad hoc fellowship of Christian researchers with roots dating back to 1985.